


A Short History of the End of the World

by Clea2011



Category: Primeval
Genre: Angst, Apocalypse, F/M, Inspired by Art, No Fluff, Peril, Plotty, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-28
Updated: 2013-04-28
Packaged: 2017-12-09 19:32:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/777201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clea2011/pseuds/Clea2011
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pretty much what the title says.  It's the end of the world as we know it, and nobody feels fine.<br/>Post S5.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Short History of the End of the World

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the primeval_denial Art prompt challenge over on Live Journal.  
> Inspired by the lovely artwork by munchkinofdoom which is on her journal [here](http://munchkinofdoom.livejournal.com/79959.html). She's also made a wonderful header and icon set. Thanks to fredbassett for a very helpful beta.

 

 

  

## April

It was supposed to be the cruellest month, but in reality it was sweet and fresh, and held the beginnings of an early Spring.  There were bluebells in the park and the weather was mild enough for Jess to relax and walk home, enjoying the feel of the late afternoon sun on her face after being cooped up inside all day. 

She smiled at the sheer joy of it, the relatively clear air away from the smog of the city streets.

One day, she thought, it would be over and she could move away from the city, somewhere cleaner and fresher, somewhere that she could settle down and walk her children through a park if she wanted to. 

Somewhere else.  But not yet, there was still too much to do.

In her pocket her phone bleeped, summoning her back to the ARC.  Another anomaly.

Far too much to do.

## May

Weddings weren't really Becker's thing, but he'd made an exception for Abby and Connor, largely because he'd been asked to be best man, and the slightly put-out expressions on Matt and Lester's faces - well, on Matt's face mostly - made him a lot keener on the whole thing than he ever would normally be.  And there was the dancing afterwards, which also wasn't his thing, but if he had no choice other than to dance with the chief bridesmaid then so be it.  He had gone above and beyond the call of duty, really.  And if he had still been holding her at the end of the evening then he was just doing the traditional job of best man as well as he possibly could.  That was all.  And Connor could stop grinning, and Matt could stop smirking, and most of all Lester could stop looking at him in that disapproving way which told him he was going to be sacked if he didn't watch out, and that didn't he know Jess was Lester's favourite?

He pulled her a little closer, glad of the excuse.

## June

The anomalies were quieter than usual, and the team actually started to nurture the hope that they might stop altogether.  Jess found herself with more time off, and a new man to share it with.  She didn't question her luck.  They'd done enough over the past few years; it was good to have a break.

Later she would look back on that summer and wonder where it went. 

## July

The anomalies had stopped. 

At first, it just seemed to be a temporary reprieve.  To start with there were a few days when they were all on call, but basically free to do as they wished.  Then as the days turned into weeks, and the weeks turned into a month, the relief turned into concern.  There was only so much funding, only so long that a large workforce could be employed to do nothing. 

Lester was waiting for the call from the minister.  He wouldn't close the project, not so soon, but they all knew there would be cuts eventually. 

Matt and Connor were locked away in one of the labs, trying to work out what had happened.  Connor was optimistic, Matt quite the opposite.  But then, Lester thought, Matt was never the most cheery of souls.

Lester would be sorry to lose the team, see the ARC disband.   But if it meant an end to all the creatures coming through, an end to all the senseless deaths, then he thought he could live with it.  

## August

Another week passed.  Two.  Nearly a third of the workforce were on notice.  And then the ADD alarm blared.

They weren't back to normal.

It wasn't as bad as convergence, but there were a lot of anomalies.  Far too many of them seemed to lead to the future.  Everyone knew that.  They could tell from what came out of them.  They didn't need to look at Matt, to see how his shoulders slumped with each new proof of his failure, to know that.

In the end, there was no Philip Burton to blame, nothing but the anomalies themselves.  One opened somewhere in the Brecons, and by the time the team had reached it and closed it there had been an incursion.  Future predators, outside in the open. 

There wasn't a hope in hell of capturing them, the predators were too fast, had run too far.  Perhaps there weren't that many of them, but it was enough. 

"We could use a bomb," Matt had suggested to Lester.  "Evacuate, then bomb the whole area.  They know what's at stake, there's been enough evidence of the things come through now.  It's the only way." 

There was going to be no covering this up, whatever they did.  Why not go for the very worst thing?  Stop them in their tracks. 

"You're starting to sound like Becker," Lester had replied.  But he'd seen enough, knew what the things were capable of and could see the horrible sense in taking such an action.  He was on the phone to the minister, his face showing every inch of the strain his recommendation was putting him under.  Wales was so very beautiful. 

The minister knew enough to consider it.  Didn't know enough to approve it.  He ordered troops in to hunt the things down, still trying to keep it all secret.  And then it was all in the hands of the military, who didn't really know what they were dealing with, and by the time they realised that Matt was right it was far too late and who knew where the predators had gone?    

When the news came through that the predators had got away, Becker and Emily stood helplessly outside Matt's office.  The door was locked, the blinds were closed.    No amount of hammering on the door would persuade him to open it.  There was silence on the other side, until at last they heard what sounded like a sob or a whimper, stifled but just audible.  He'd failed.

And that was how the end of the world began. 

## September

The anomalies were no longer a secret.

How could they be, appearing everywhere?  How could they be when the news was full of creature sightings, of mobile phone footage of predators tearing their victims apart?  Terrifyingly, there were pictures of young.  The things had already bred and the babies were growing fast.

Everyone wanted a scapegoat, and there was only ever going to be one person pushed forward in that role.  Naturally the minister had almost washed his hands of the ARC, stepping away as soon as it was evident things had failed, trusting that resignation would be enough.

James Lester, never likely to be knighted now, sat in his cell calmly, resigned to his fate.  He knew how these things worked.  If the powers that be thought you were causing too much trouble then a few trumped-up terrorism charges were an easy way to ensure that nobody was ever going to listen to you again.  At least he knew he was relatively safe while he was locked away in there.   For now.

He'd sent his family abroad as soon as it started.  Not Europe, because there was the bloody Channel Tunnel, and if the things hadn't reached the mainland of the continent by now then they soon would.  New Zealand, as far away as possible, supposedly on holiday but they wouldn't be coming back.  It was one less thing to worry about, and would probably be the last place on earth to be overrun.  Maybe it would even remain safe?  He knew he'd never see them again, whatever happened.  They couldn't stay behind anyway, not with his name all over the papers and bricks through windows, and worse.  It didn't matter that it wasn't true, people wanted someone to blame and if the papers told everyone that he'd set the predators loose as revenge for his own thwarted ambitions then it must be true.  They even had footage of him with one, cleverly edited so that it wasn't apparent he was fighting for his life at the time.

Sending your family away was one thing, but apparently the minister had emigrated as well.  Rats and sinking ships sprang to mind.  In retrospect, perhaps threatening to go public with the fact that most of the other senior MPs were also in the process of fleeing the country wasn't his wisest move.   

He stared at the wall, listening to the clanging of doors echoing around the building, the shouts from other inmates.  It went on day and night, no respite, thinking they had it so bad.  Did they even know what was going on outside?

Somewhere out there his team would be fighting with everything they had to stop the predators.  

He wondered if they were even still alive.

## October

Another anomaly had opened to the future, and the country was overrun.  Too late someone had thought to seal the tunnel instead of leaving insufficient, ineffective guards on both sides, and France had fallen.  Islands were small havens, Jersey and Guernsey already packed to capacity and the strain of too many people producing its own kind of predator.

It was frightening, how fast civilisation was falling apart.

The remnants of the ARC team gathered around the ADD.  It wasn't going to work forever, already it was struggling on emergency power.

"The country's overrun.  It makes the place a threat to the safety of the rest of the world," Becker announced, looking at the feeds Jess was hacking into.  "You need to get abroad."

"Or we could all go deep underground," Matt reminded him.  "My people were survivors who lived underground.  The tunnels under London... There are deep level shelters under some of the tube stations, we should get to one of those.   The one at Belsize Park survived, the signs were still there in my time.  We could get through whatever they throw at us if we go there.  I think..." He paused, looking around at the barely concealed fear on many of their faces. "I think the bombing gets out of hand.  There weren't a lot of places left to live in.  Perhaps that's why there's such a wasteland out there by my time."

"It's too much of a risk," Becker argued.   "You and I could do that and carry on fighting here, but the others should go abroad now, while there's still time."

"It's already too late, even if either of you seriously think we'll leave you.  There are riots at the airports," Jess pointed out.  "Everyone's had the same thought, and the planes aren't returning once they've gone.  You'd have to shoot innocent people to get us through."

Becker looked at her, and all of them.  He thought if it came down to it then there was a chance he might do just that.

"We should do as Matt says," Emily agreed.  "Then try to go abroad afterwards."

Abby rubbed at her gently swelling stomach.  "What about the menagerie?  The creatures?  We can't leave them trapped here."

"No," Matt agreed.  "And we can't let them go, or take them with us.  But we can prevent them suffering."

It was a mark of the desperation of their situation that Abby didn't even argue with him.

*

The guards had long since gone.  Some of the prisoners had broken out, but nobody had bothered with the few businessmen locked in there, of no interest to fellow inmates.  There were basic facilities in Lester's cell, but the water system had failed overnight.  That might just be in the building or it was just as likely to be an indication that there was a more widespread problem out in the world that he didn't know about.  It was frustrating, not knowing what was happening.  He wondered what would get him first: thirst, hunger or the predators?  Probably the former, as the predators had so many easier victims.  The tinned food could wait. 

It had been several days since he'd seen anyone.  He could hear his fellow inmates.  The man in the next cell had screamed and shouted until he was hoarse, and then still carried on.  It was so undignified.  If they'd reached the end then surely they should have earned some peace?  He was quieter now, exhausted by the shouting and the lack of food and water.  They all were.

Lester spent most of the day lying on his bunk, conserving his energy.  He thought of the creatures, locked up in the menagerie in the ARC and wondered if they were meeting a similar fate.  If they were then it would have been kinder to let Burton euthanize them after all.

Sometimes he could hear the other inmates crying, quietly.  Thirst and hunger hurt as it got worse, and none of these were people who would have ever expected to feel it as strongly as this.

He waited.  He had the one thing that none of the rest of them did: hope.  He knew that if his team were still alive, they would come to find him.  It was only a slim hope because they would have been at the centre of any fighting against the predators, but the loyalty that had always held them all together would only become stronger at a time like this.  The others, who had lied and cheated their way into those cells, had nobody who would be so loyal to them.

It was late afternoon when it happened.  There was a gunshot, then the sound of a door crashing in somewhere far below them.  _Becker_ , he thought, because the soldier would want to be dramatic and make it look like the rescue attempt he hoped it would be. 

He could hear the other prisoners moving around, starting to call out.  Some of them sounded so very weak.  He would just lie there a little longer, until he was sure.

And then there was Matt's distinctive accent, and Becker's cut glass tones arguing with him, and Connor yelling at them both that they'd have to let all the prisoners out.  There was blast after blast, the sound of doors swinging open, people calling to them that they should be next, Matt swearing and Becker yelling instructions to their men, telling them to find food and water for the prisoners.

Always dignified, Lester got to his feet, swayed a little, smoothed down his shirt then stepped over to the bars, waiting.

He'd never been so glad to see Connor's face, but he wasn't going to let that show because then they'd really think he was in a bad way.  And anyway, Connor was grinning enough for both of them, and had just pulled an energy bar from his pocket.

Circumstances had got to be pretty dire if he was accepting food that had spent time on Connor's person.

## November

Connor hated the tunnels.

It reminded him of the ones he'd seen in the future, the future that was being created around him with every passing day.

Certainly they'd brought in all the stocks and supplies that they could, locked them up and holed themselves in, and now it looked just a little bit like the underground shelter Matt had led them to in the future.  Better stocked, larger, but it was unmistakeably the start of it. 

It had been quiet for the first few days, no sign of the threatened attacks.  He'd helped Jess set up the limited comms they'd managed to take with them, and they'd listened in on everything that they thought might tell them something, but there was never anything decisive.  Some enterprising soul was broadcasting from the French coast, purposely targeting Britain in case someone was still out there listening.  It wasn't much, just a translation of the world news, and they could have got it from other sources.  But there was something reassuring about still hearing a British accent on the broadcasts in amongst all the sea of foreign speakers.

There wasn't much warning when the attacks started.  Lester had thought one of the calls Jess had intercepted was the order and he was proved right. 

It went on for days, the ground above them shaking and echoing in the distance.  Matt had been right about the shelter holding, but part of the actual station above them and one of the tunnels further down the line collapsed under the blasts, and then there was more risk that something could get in and find their shelter.

They weren't the only ones in the underground shelters.  Once the bombing started, people had gone to the obvious refuges.  He'd heard that a water main had burst and flooded the one at Chancery Lane, and that someone had run amok in one of the Clapham ones and started shooting everyone.  Just what they needed, a human predator to add to the carnage.

He felt responsible, although the others kept telling him it wasn't his fault and had nothing to do with New Dawn and the work he'd done with Philip.  Whoever was responsible, his main concern was that Abby shouldn't have had to go through this.  He would have done anything to keep her and the child growing inside her safe.  Instead, all they could do was sit and wait, and listen to the explosions far above them, feeling the ground shake as the world tried to eliminate the threat.  Matt, he noticed, didn't say anything.  He watched Emily and Becker both take turns sitting with him

There weren't that many new people joining them now.   In the first few days there had been a steady trickle of refugees, so many that they'd been worried about the chances of survival.  The food and water would only last so long, and with every extra mouth to feed it would last that little bit less time.  Now it was only one or two people a day, sometimes not even that.  Becker and his men went off in search of food, raiding shops and stores that hadn't already been looted.  Connor had spent most of his time sitting with Jess, working on the comms. 

They'd established contact with plenty of other countries, but it had quickly become apparent that there wasn't going to be any sort of rescue.  They were told to stay where they were, that there would be aid packages dropped, and that when things were cleared up and it was safe to land, there would be a rescue.  So.  As the predator problem would never clear up, it was safe to assume there would never be a rescue either.

Emily, given her past, had made the suggestion that they were all mulling over: go through an anomaly, find a place in the past that they could live in away from people of that time.  Effectively, become a second time tribe.

Becker hated the idea.  Connor suspected that he still thought he could stay here and shoot things until all the predators had gone.  Anything rather than go through an anomaly.

Becker was alone in his opposition though.  Everyone, even Matt, supported it.  Connor had a suspicion that Matt didn't intend actually going through himself, and that he would be glad to be free of the burden of friendship and loyalty so that he could go off and try to save the world yet again.  It was just a feeling.  For his part, all Connor really wanted was for Abby to be safe.  He'd put her in more danger with the pregnancy and regardless of whether the anomalies were his fault or not, there was no question of his responsibility with regard to Abby.

He followed Becker up to the surface when the explosions stopped, scavenging for food, and prayed they'd find a suitable anomaly soon.

## December

One good thing about the tunnels was that they were well insulated. 

It protected the refugees from the attacks, and from the elements.  Matt recalled how it had been in his time, those tunnels had been deep underground and only the ones near the surface had grown cold in winter.  The others had been warm, and rather stuffy all the time.  Sometimes the air supply had failed, ventilation shafts had collapsed, people had died.  Nasty way to go.  Matt thought he might prefer the predators because at least they were quick.

The bombing had stopped, in their area at least.  Jess was picking up reports from elsewhere which told them that it had just moved to another part of the country.   He knew they'd be back, and all too soon was proved right.  But for a week or so at the start of the month the little group could breathe slightly easier.

Then the attacks came back with a vengeance and disaster struck.

The network of tunnels under London had become quite heavily populated.  Some areas were better to live in than others, Becker and his men ensured that anyone in their own shelter behaved in a civilised manner.  The stories that were starting to come back from some of the other shelters were more horrific, society destroying itself from within.  Who needed the creatures?

Jess and Connor were doing a good job of keeping the comms running, finding out what was going on, picking up military communications as well as that from other survivors.  It wasn't great, they were constantly having to repair the receiver on the surface, and the signal was poor at best.  But it was enough of an early warning that gave them a small window to get away. 

There were a lot of tunnels under London.  Many of them linked together, which was a risk because if the predators ever found their way down there then it was only a matter of time before they wiped everyone out. 

Perhaps one had, and that was what caused things to go wrong?  Matt didn't know, and they never found out.  All that Jess picked up from the transmission was that a bomb had missed its target and gone into the Thames, right over the Northern line tunnel between Borough and Bank.

At first it didn't seem to be a problem.  The tunnel was buried deep, of course it was, built to last.  And because it was deep, people were down there, people who sent short, panicked reports to the other tunnel-dwellers that there was water starting to come in.  And then nothing.

Water was possibly the most destructive element.  It could get through anything, given the chance.  And they were in one of the deepest tunnels, albeit some distance from the breach.  Their refuge was going to be flooded and they all needed to get out of there.  All of them.

There were too many people down there for a quick evacuation.  For a moment Matt and Lester were faced with an impossible decision, whether to take their own and run for it, stand some sort of chance, or whether to let everyone know and stand no chance at all because there would be panic and a race for the exits.

But down there everyone was always listening to everything, particularly the comms because there was nothing else to do, a shout went up and the decision was taken out of their hands.  

Not everyone stampeded for the obvious ways out.  Some of the people who had joined them had already learned to look to Matt for advice on their new underground world and they rushed to him instead.  Not many though.  From nearly two hundred people, their group was instantly culled to around forty, more than half of them from the ARC.

There was a way out.  He'd found it early on, remembered it from his own past where it was a frequently used route in and out of the tunnels.   There were plenty of ways in added later, and until he'd seen it in this time he couldn't be sure it was there.  The people stumbling over each other on the main entrances would never find it on their own, and there were too many of them.  Forty.  He thought he might be able to save forty.

"This way," he told them, and was surprised by the lack of argument as they all hurried further up the tunnels, away from the shouting, heaving mass of people who were destroying each other with their own unwillingness to give way.  If anyone noticed them leave they didn't follow, because after all it looked as if they were heading further into the tunnels and nobody in their right mind would go there.

"Here!" Matt had found the bolt-hole he was looking for, an escape hatch to a smaller tunnel and a ladder beyond it leading up to the surface.  It was labelled as a fire escape, so the safety door would seal them in and hopefully would be watertight.  "If we can get in there and lock the door, it should hold long enough for us to get out." 

Becker threw his entire weight against the lock wheel, forcing it to turn.  Slowly it creaked around and the door swung open.  It had probably been sealed for years.

There was no wheel on the other side.  There rarely was on those things. 

They both looked at it as their small group hurried through.  They knew what had to be done. 

"You know what's coming.  You're better placed to help them survive.  No arguments."  Becker gave him a shove towards the hatch, making him trip and sprawl forward.  "Go!"

Jess turned as the door was closing, saw what was happening and stopped, already opening her mouth to protest.  As Matt scrambled to his feet, meaning to stop Becker, there was only a moment left.  His eyes were on Jess and there was just one word almost drowned by the cry of distress from behind him:

"Live."

And then the door closed and he was gone, presumably swept away as if he'd never been there at all.

There was no time to grieve, to cry, the water was still heading their way and they all had to climb.  Soon they could hear it roaring through the tunnels, past where they had been and there was a pause none of them could help as they knew their friend would be caught in it, lost.  Then Matt shouted at them to move, higher, faster as a fine spray started to pulse through tiny cracks, pooling at their feet in the cramped space below.  The hatch had survived into the future before, but things might have changed and in his future it might never have had to deal with an underground flood.  He wasn't going to waste any time, or let anyone else do so.  Jess had frozen on the ladder, looking down at the water, her face a mask of pain.  Matt pushed her ahead of him, forcing her up the ladder, shouting at her whenever she hesitated, shoving her roughly:

"If you slow us down, he's done that for nothing!  Move!"

Her eyes widened, then narrowed into a grimly resigned expression he'd never seen from her before, and she was moving decisively onwards. 

He wasn't going to let Becker's sacrifice be in vain.

*

Contrary to popular belief, Becker wasn't the self-sacrificial type.

He knew he operated better alone, that other people slowed him down, and that if anyone stood a chance of getting out of that tunnel alive it would be him.  With the others sealed away and safe from the immediate threat if nothing else, he turned and ran.  There wasn't a hope in hell that he could outrun the water and he knew it, but there was the collapsed tunnel not so very far away that led out to the surface and if he could just reach that in time then he would at least stand some chance of being swept out instead of simply being dashed against the underground walls and either pulverised to death or drowned.

Afterwards, he couldn't remember what had happened.

He knew he had reached the exit after he splashed down the tunnel, water running at him from all directions.  He could recall clambering up towards the daylight that was a long, long way above him.   There was a vague recollection of hearing a steady roar getting ever closer, and then something hitting him, pushing him forward and upwards.  It was all a bit of a blur after that. 

His aching, soaked, bruised and freezing body told him that whatever had happened to him was something he was best off not recalling in too much detail.  His left arm, most of his left side in fact, hurt as though he'd been slammed into something.  He didn't think anything was actually broken, but bruises could hurt badly enough and there were definitely going to be bruises.  He winced as he untangled himself from the debris that had wrapped itself around him, flinging it aside with his good arm.  He'd lost the EMD whilst he was running, and it would have been useless now anyway.  His trusty shotgun was still strapped to his back.  Proof, as if he'd ever needed it, that his Mossberg was the better weapon.

The water had subsided quickly, but it had swept through the city and he knew it was going to take time to find his way back to the others.  His leg hurt too, from whatever he'd been thrown against by the wave of water, but at least he could stand.  He'd been lucky.

There were others not so lucky.  As the water receded he could see bodies, though whether they were victims of the bombings, the predators or the water he couldn't tell.  There appeared to be no end of things trying to lower the population level.

He was still in the Hampstead area, which was something.  He could've been carried miles by the water, never found his way back.  But they'd been far enough out that it hadn't been deadly. 

The bombers were another matter.

The earth shook beneath his feet, and he realised the engines were getting closer.  Perhaps the flooding had been deliberate, to flush the predators out, and now they were moving in for the clean-up.  It was a good strategy.  After all, the people left were as good as dead anyway.

Becker didn't intend being as good as dead.  He ran for shelter, ignoring the pain in his leg, ducking down as the next explosion hit.  It was closer than he was comfortable with.  Another plane was coming in and he wondered if they'd seen him moving and thought he was a predator.  He stood up quickly, waving to them, signalling that he wasn't a threat.

The third blast threw him up to meet the sky, and the smoke-scarred endless blue was the last thing he remembered.

*

There were thirty-eight of them left when Matt counted.

Twenty-six ARC staff, and twelve people who'd thrown in their lot with him.  They were all huddled together in what looked to be some kind of storeroom at the top of the fire escape.  Outside there were people emerging from the station a few at a time, running off in random directions.  Even as he watched, a predator emerged from the shadows.  It was injured, but that didn't stop it going after one of the slower stragglers.  Matt winced, and looked away, finding one of the newcomers staring at him.  They'd obviously seen what was happening outside.

"Do we just stay here?"

"For now."  He looked around for Lester, wanting to discuss the situation with him, make a decision on what they should do next.  But he was crouching down with the rest of the core team, all of them huddled together in grief, several of them quietly crying.  Part of him wanted to go over and join them, to recognise the pain he felt himself at what had happened.  He'd let himself grow attached to his friends and care what happened to them.  It was something he'd been brought up never to do.  He'd failed his father in so many ways.  But he couldn't help himself, he went over, crouched beside them, tried to find something to say that would help.  It wasn't something he was good at.

"Perhaps he survived.  You don't know..."

"Of course he didn't survive, you stupid man!" Jess snapped at him.  "How could he possibly have survived that?!"

Matt had no answer.  He knew the truth as well as she did, and left the sobbing girl with Emily to find whatever comfort she could.  He had other things to worry about.  He'd learned long ago not to dwell on the dead.

He turned to Tyler, who had been Becker's deputy, and started organising rotas with him for keeping watch.  If Tyler felt aggrieved at the apparent lack of reaction to the loss of his friend and senior officer he didn't show it because he was Becker's man through and through and Becker would have just got on with the job as well.  Matt was thankful for that one small mercy. 

*

They never found a body that they could definitely identify.  Becker's EMD was found amongst the debris weeks later, twisted and broken when they'd returned to the tunnels after the water had gone.  There were too many dead in the tunnels to even think about searching through them, and the only safe thing was to burn the bodies before disease took hold and became one more thing to threaten their existence.    If Becker was among them they really didn't want to know.

They cleared the shelter out, salvaged what they could, scavenged the remaining shops and offices, and started again.

 

## January

Anomalies were the only way out.

This one was difficult to reach, partway up a collapsed tunnel.  If the bombs hadn't hit it, the chances were that the anomaly would have remained hidden, underground.  At least the attacks had done some good.  Emily and Gilmore had climbed up to it and gone through.  It was what they did, the woman from the past and the young soldier who was charged with protecting her while she checked the area.  Sometimes they were barely gone for a moment, racing back through, screaming at the others to lock the anomaly.

This time they weren't back quickly.  Jess watched the concern growing on Matt's face, the way he kept glancing at his watch.  It had looked so hopeful at first, they'd called back that it looked habitable, then hurried off to scout the area.  It had to be a quick decision, whichever anomaly they finally escaped through, and a few minutes looking around was vital.

Emily came back through, her face shining, hopeful in a way none of them had dared to be in a long time.

"My tribe!" She was almost laughing with relief.  "I found the tribe!  We can go through, we can join them!"  She turned to Abby, her eyes drifting automatically to the woman's swollen stomach.  "You will be able to raise your child in a clean world.  And one of the tribe is a doctor."

Jess huddled over the radio, talking to someone in one of the other shelters, telling them what they were doing.  She was aware of people going past her, climbing up into the anomaly.  There was hope on their faces, something she hadn't seen for a while. 

Then her friends started to climb, Connor carefully helping Abby, all of them knowing getting through that gateway was really her only chance to have a relatively safe birth.  Emily was ahead of them, holding out her hands, reaching down to pull Abby through.  She looked like an angel reaching down from heaven, Jess thought.  The light of the anomaly lit her from behind, and from her position up high it looked like a tableau from a painting she recalled as a child.   Then Abby was through and gone, Connor behind her, never far from her side.  Two of the women from the group scrambled up after him, then several of the injured men.  Lester had tried to stay back, insisting that others went first until on an order from Matt three of the soldiers manhandled him through the anomaly, his angry protests that he wasn't injured and could wait his turn all being ignored. 

Jess felt a hand on her arm.

"Leave the radio, Jess.  The anomaly's starting to flicker.  You need to go."

Matt wouldn't go through, she knew that the moment he'd forced Lester to go, making sure that they had someone who would take charge out there.  Connor had whispered his suspicions to her weeks ago and it looked as if he were right.  Even if every last one of them was safe she thought he'd still stay, still try to save the world.  He deserved better, she thought.  They all did, really. 

"Make sure you follow me.  We need you," she told him as she started the climb.  He said something that she didn't catch, but she didn't look back, knowing she would hold the others behind her up if she didn't keep moving.  The woman in front slipped, lost her footing and nearly knocked them all down.  Jess scrambled to get her place back, clawing at the rock.  Someone pushed past her, desperate to get through and she slipped back down a little.

"Jess!  Matt!  Hurry!"

She looked up at the cry as another man pushed past her, and realised in horror that she could never make it in time and this would be the last time she saw Emily.  Her best friend's face was framed by the halo of the anomaly, shocked and afraid as it flickered around her.  A hand snaked out, grabbed Emily and pulled her to safety a moment before the thing closed.  Fingerless gloves.  Connor.  Another friend they'd never see again.

Numbly, Jess let one of the soldiers lift her back down.  They stood there in the silence.  All those left behind really had nothing to say.

Matt's expression was unreadable as he stared at the space where the anomaly had been.   And then he looked at her, and she knew she wasn't who he wanted to see standing there, for so many reasons.

She reached out and took his hand, squeezing it gently, sympathetically. 

He didn't pull away.

*

Sometimes life felt like a dream.

When Becker had opened his eyes he saw a clean white ceiling above him, and felt a soft mattress beneath him.  There was no sign of bombs or floods or impossible creatures that could rip you apart before you knew they'd even sensed you. 

"You're awake."

The medic leaning over him hadn't smiled.  He ticked something off on the clipboard on the end of the bed, then moved on to the next bed.  No explanation, nothing.

The room was full of beds.  Some people were lying on the floor, some on beds like the one Becker was on.  The place stank of blood and antiseptic.  The man on the bed next to him was so white he looked like a marble statue, his eyes sunken and gray.  The sheets didn't cover his injuries properly, Becker could see there was only one leg.

His own leg hurt too much to be missing.  He'd looked down, and had seen the outline of his own limbs. Still whole. 

Being awake had been, apparently, enough for the medics.  He had been left there for a few hours, mostly because he wasn't in danger and they'd probably forgotten all about him, and then someone had greater need of the bed and he got moved into a chair.

At that point, someone in a white coat who presumably had some medical skills had come over and run a few tests.  No concussion, two broken ribs and a hairline fracture in his leg.  They said he was lucky.

Becker hadn't felt lucky.  He still didn't.  The injuries were going to make it difficult to run when the predators swamped the place, because sooner or later that was going to happen.

The staff were too busy to talk much, but he gathered that he was in a temporary hospital along with countless other people.  He'd been picked up by the military, they'd been rescuing survivors where they could despite claims otherwise.  He'd been thrown into a fairly open spot by the blast, and maybe they recognised one of their own, because there had been a brief landing and he'd been pulled out with a few others.

All the survivors had their own horror stories.  The relative safety of the hospital seemed to have lulled them all into a false sense of security and they chattered and complained and wondered who they could sue.  Then they wondered when they could go home, because surely the government would have sorted things out by now.  Becker felt quite sorry for the administrators, who seemed to bear the brunt of it all.  He kept to himself, naturally quiet, gave out his military background and offered his help.

It had been a good way to get out of there and get back into doing something useful.  His knowledge of the anomalies wasn't completely unique because records that the British government had obtained from the ARC had been shared, but it was close enough for him to be invaluable to the allied forces.  Apparently it was a good career move too. He was reinstated with a promotion, and his injuries were given time to heal whilst he sat around in meetings discussing strategies and every technique they'd ever used against the predators.

Ridiculously, the sonar information actually got him a second promotion.  It was a pity that civilisation was ending and he couldn't enjoy either the increased salary or the recognition.  Not that either had ever been a big thing to Becker.  He had tried to tell them that the sonar hadn't been his discovery, that their priority should be trying to retrieve Connor and Matt because they were the ones with the real knowledge, and the rest of the group too.  His words fell on deaf ears, London was felt to be too overrun, nobody could still be alive down there.  It wasn't worth the risk.

If anyone could keep them alive, it would be Matt, Becker reflected.  Matt knew what was coming, what had already started to happen, and knew how to live through it.   Becker wasn't going to give up hope until he saw the bodies... and given how little the predators left behind he knew that meant never giving up hope.

When it was quiet, when there was nothing to do except sit and wait for his injuries to heal so that he would be allowed back out into the field (because he was going back out there, promotion be damned, he wasn't going to sit behind a desk and wait for them to be overrun), Becker listened to the radio broadcasts that were getting picked up.  It was a long way from the American military base he'd been moved to, there was a whole ocean between them, but it made him feel slightly less detached from what was going on.

He'd had comms set up for him so that he could listen to what was going on, messages from the areas that were already lost.  The signals were weak, almost inaudible, but every now and then there was something from Jess or Connor, mostly information on the situation over there.  They seemed to have a contact in Belgium who was relaying their messages back and forth for a while.  Then that stopped.  It didn't mean it was them.  It could just as easily be the contact that was silenced.  Belgium wasn't doing too well, after all.  Or they'd gone through an anomaly, because they'd talked about that.  He didn't like the idea, would never like the idea, but if it meant they were alive and safe somewhere then he could live with it.  Of course, that meant he'd never see any of them again.  He knew he'd have to live with that, too.

Two months recuperation was a long time to wait in the circumstances.  His ribs were healing, but they still hurt, and the crutch he had to use to reduce the stress on his leg made the idea of him going out in the field laughable. 

He waited.

## February

It was the colours that Jess missed the most.  Somehow the whole world had turned grey.  Perhaps it was the explosions, scattering dust and debris everywhere.  Perhaps it was because it never seemed to rain any more and nothing was washed clean.  Perhaps it was simply because they lived in the sewers and the tunnels, like rats.  She hadn't seen daylight in weeks.

There were eleven of them that had failed to make it through the anomaly.  Matt, Tyler, herself, two other soldiers, four ARC staff and two people who had joined them when the tunnel had flooded.  Four more had joined them since.  Jess thought she should probably get to know them, at least learn their names, but she was finding it difficult to care.

Matt, Tyler and two of the others were coming back in after a trip to the surface.  They looked greyer than ever, filthy from the dust out there. 

"Here."  Matt pushed a thick bundle at her which turned out to be a ski jacket.   Too big, but welcome in the growing cold of the late winter months on the rare occasion when they went outside or ventured nearer the surface.  They didn't know what to expect from the temperatures.  Perhaps everyone would freeze to death and wouldn't that be a mercy of sorts?  She pulled the warm material around herself because the will to live was still stronger.

## March

Matt never slept well, always half-awake, listening for the sound of the predators that would one day wipe them all out.

One night it was a human predator he heard, a shriek, a grunt of pain, and then suddenly Jess was standing over him with her sleeping bag in her arms.  She didn't even ask, just flung it down next to him and slept there from then on.  He noticed in the morning that they were missing one of the research technicians.  Becker's men were well-trained and carried standards of decency even through the fall of civilisation.  Matt supposed that was going to be tested to the limit in the coming years, assuming they all lived that long.  It hadn't escaped his notice that only three of their remaining group were female.  He could remember what it was like, back in his past, in their future.  The women were like prizes, treated as if they were less than human. 

He shifted closer to her, wondering just how long he'd be able to protect her.  He had other things to worry about, more important things, but he didn't like the thought of anything happening to the last member of the small group of people he'd come to think of as his friends.    

Others were going to be less fortunate, with nobody caring enough to protect them, or having the benefit of spending several years being brow-beaten into learning basic self-defence by the man they were both missing.

Two weeks later predators found their way into the tunnels.  They lost five people, including one of the soldiers and one of the last women.  The remaining group of nine moved on.  It wasn't as if it mattered.  Nobody was looking for them.

## April

Becker felt as if he had just sat back and watched the world collapse around him.  Slowly whole countries seemed to have been swallowed up, their broadcasts stuttering, failing and then gone. 

He had healed, as much as he felt he needed to, and was ready to go home.  From the other side of the world, with no planes heading for Europe if they could help it, that was easier said than done.

At his own request he eventually got permission to go back out into the field, helping fight against the ever-growing threat, but it was growing hopeless.   Becker could remember all too clearly the footage Matt had brought with him, images of what the world was going to turn into.  He had seen the huge changes for himself first hand as well, long before Matt arrived.  He'd nearly died in a future world that they'd all hoped that they would never see again.  Somehow, when Matt had shown them the footage it had looked just like a film, like something that could never happen despite everything that they had witnessed. 

The quickest way home still seemed to be through the military.  Time and again he tried to get himself on board a flight back but they were few and far between, and he was still looked upon as being too valuable, even though he had nothing left to tell them.

There was the option to just leave.  It wasn't the American military that he'd ever signed up for, after all, and it wasn't as if anyone was going to bother to come after him.  He suspected that was why they wouldn't approve him for an overseas trip, because whilst he made no secret of the fact that he wouldn't come back there was probably a suspicion that he would vanish at once and not even carry out whatever mission he was sent over there for.

Anyone who thought that didn't know him very well.

But then, that was part of the trouble.  He was their expert, or had been, and having been established as such they were reluctant to give him up.  Even though everyone was an expert now, it was hard to break a habit, particularly when the whole scenario was so frightening and new.  He didn't think that he'd ever persuade them.

And then the opportunity suddenly arose.  A rescue attempt, not for the people who might actually be able to help, but for some useless General whose ill-advised surveillance flight had gone down somewhere over the Austrian Tyrol and he needed picking up.  Despite the fact that there had been no predators sighted in the area, there was a distinct shortage of volunteers.  Suddenly Becker found himself on a flight with a few others.  It would still be a long way from home, but at least he wouldn't be separated from it by an entire ocean.   He didn't look back.

## May, June...

Becker had lived in or around London for most of his life.  His parents had moved there to be closer to his father's work at Whitehall when he was just a boy, he'd grown up there, and then returned when he started work at the ARC.

London went on forever.   He'd walked and walked as a teenager when he'd grown sick of the place, trying to find green fields.  In any other city if you walked far enough you'd find the end but London never seemed to end. 

When he finally found his way back to the city after months away, crossing the Channel in a small motor boat that he beached and abandoned, he didn't recognise it.  All the landmarks were gone, swept away in a tide of carnage and destruction.

He carried a Mossberg, and he travelled slowly, quietly through the streets.  The predators had been more numerous outside the city, roaming the countryside where most people had escaped to.  He'd stayed in the truck that he'd managed to hotwire when he arrived back in his homeland, because leaving it meant certain death.  Only when the roads started to become impassable did he leave it, and even then it was only to get out, clear the way and then get back in the truck again.  But eventually he got to the really heavily bombed areas, and the only way was on foot.

Becker hadn't really expected to find them still at Belsize Park, but he had to go there first.  There was evidence that someone had been there since the flood, and signs as well of a predator massacre though what was left wasn't enough to identify anyone from.  It wasn't them, he was determined to believe that.  They had Matt who knew which of the tunnels were going to survive the longest, they would have got away.

The trouble was, there was no clue as to where they had gone.  If they were still managing any sort of radio contact he wasn't picking it up, though he knew that was probably down to his own lack of skills and the damage his equipment had suffered during a near miss with a predator just outside Dover.  His only option was to start searching. 

Abandoning the truck, he tried walking through the underground tunnels, reasoning that Matt was most likely to have taken them down there.  He didn't find them, but he did find other survivors, and asked them all about the ARC team but to no avail.  They all were huddled away, a few of them starving because they were too afraid to go out and scavenge for food.  If they'd seen other groups they mostly tended to hide from them.   Some of them followed him because he took pity on them, went up to the surface and found food to take back to them.  He wondered what they were all going to do when the now well-depleted storerooms of the shops and cafes ran out. 

He didn't want to be a leader.  That was Matt's job.  Danny's job.  Cutter's job.  He particularly didn't want to lead a group of people who were weak and frightened and doomed.   

Somehow, as the days passed, his little band of followers grew. 

Everything they'd ever seen of the future was bleak and empty, the population long gone.  The reality wasn't like that. 

There were so many people in the world, and despite their overwhelming strength there were still only a relatively small number of predators so far.  It meant that there were a large number of people still around.   The predators were reproducing fast given the huge food source, both with each other and via the ever-opening anomalies.  Survivors had mostly left the city once the bombing started, but those left had banded together in small groups, the noise they made ensuring that they were easy pickings.

Outside the city, smaller towns had been overrun by vast mobs, hungry and terrified and just as noisy, looking for an escape that wasn't going to come.  It was totally different, and yet the end came in just the same way.

An anomaly opened.  It looked calm enough on the other side, or so they said when he sent two people through to look.  He sent them all through, was alone again and glad of it.  He knew he was probably tearing history apart, doing everything they'd always tried not to do, but he'd stopped caring too much.  Given the future that history had grown into it really didn't seem to matter.

He kept searching, sometimes going up and scouring the ruined city.  Famous landmarks that he'd grown up with were burnt out, half-demolished by the air attacks or the predator attacks, or both.  It had horrified him at first, but after a while he'd find himself walking near the Thames and not even looking at the ruin that used to be the Parliament building, or the cracked dome of St Paul's.  All he saw were the shadows where death might be lurking, or the entrances to the underground levels that might hold the answers he was looking for.

It wasn't as if it was home.  It didn't look like home.

## July, August or sometime around then...

Sometimes the constant running and hiding was too much and Jess felt as if she'd like to just throw herself in front of one of the creatures and have done with it.  Sometimes she was just that tired of it all.  And sometimes they found somewhere that they could stop, could hole up for a few weeks, take a breather and things would be better.  And then a creature would find them, and they had to fight and move on and it all started again.

Matt didn't ever step down, and Jess for her part wouldn't leave him.  Even on the day an anomaly opened hours after a predator attack and many of their group went through.  It didn't look wonderful on the other side, they'd be taking their chances with dinosaurs, but after they'd watched two of their team torn apart in the attack, the dinosaurs didn't seem so bad.

"I'll go through if you do," she told him.  "Otherwise I'm staying."

He just stared at the wall, impassive, and told her to go.  He blamed himself that this had come to pass, she knew that. 

"We could all blame ourselves," she told him.  "Maybe I could've got you to that first anomaly faster, perhaps I could've located it sooner.  Maybe we should've searched and searched for those predators until we found them, never come home."

"I had years."

"Maybe this was supposed to happen.  Go through, you've done enough."

He wouldn't, so they both stayed.

Tyler remained with them, and the other soldier, Johnson.  It was a little easier then, with just the four of them, trying to keep ahead of the creatures and stay alive.  They lived on tinned food and bottled water that they'd found and squirreled away.  Matt always seemed to know exactly where to store them so that they would still be hidden when they returned.  He showed them how to collect water, filter and purify it because the stores wouldn't last forever no matter how much it seemed like it.

They moved from tunnel to tunnel, until they found by chance the old, long abandoned one at Down Street, better hidden than most due to already having been sealed off decades before.  Its use as a base during the Second World War provided them with a derelict telephone exchange that Jess butchered for radio parts, and all kinds of run-down facilities.  They holed up there; it was as good a place as any and having already been shut off when it closed it was easier to defend than most.

Sometimes it really was too much and she'd turn to him in the night.  It was just comfort, and not much of that either.  It wasn't as if he was betraying Emily, or she was betraying her memory of Becker.  Both were long gone.  And they always knew that every night could be their last and that they were just holding on to what they had left.  Which wasn't much, really. 

And then suddenly that was gone too.

## *

It was an anomaly back to the time before everything went wrong.  Back to that summer. 

As soon as he realised, Matt was determined to go through.  He thought he could go to the anomaly site, lock it before anything got through.  Their ruined future would never have happened.

"I can do it.  I can stop it.  It's a last chance to change things."

Jess stared into the wild, half-crazed eyes of the man she thought she knew better than anyone and knew there was going to be no dissuading him.

"But there were others," she reminded him gently.  "More creatures came through later.   I think... perhaps this is how it's meant to be."

She could see anger then, and wondered if that was how he would remember her, through a haze of denial. 

"You're wrong.  And Jess, you really want to stay here, live like this?"

"As opposed to going to live in a world where I exist as someone else, and where I can watch this happen all over again?  Yes.  Because it's going to happen, Matt, no matter what you do.  You've tried over and over, and this is still the way things go.  Maybe it's just evolution, just the way things are meant to be."

"You'll die here."

"Maybe.  If you're gone, I'll go through into the past.  Maybe we'll find Emily again.  You'd be missing that chance."

"Needle in a haystack.  Come with me."

She shook her head.  "I can't watch you fail again, Matt.  I'm sorry.  You need to accept this is how things are."

"You didn't used to be so defeatist."

She thought of the door closing on Becker all that time ago, and knew that the door had also closed on any optimism that she felt at that moment as well.

"People change.  Don't go."

He shrugged.  "If you're right, Jess, and it's just another failure then I'll be back, won't I?  Because this will still have happened."

She couldn't answer that, because she knew whatever happened he wouldn't come back to this, that he'd keep trying to make things right over and over again.  That was his particular fate, and he didn't need her pessimism to add to the bleakness of it.  So instead she held him close, one last time, wished him luck, and knew she'd never see him again. 

Part of her wanted to follow him into the past, try to change things with him.  Perhaps when it all went wrong she'd be there in that tunnel on the other side of the door and it could be her that was swept away and drowned.  But trying to change things didn't work, messing about with timelines and trying to second-guess destiny.  And if it all went wrong again, like it would, it wasn't a period of time she wanted to live through twice.

Jess waited, but there was no sudden change to a happy future, not that there was likely to be given the timeline she lived in.  Even if it had worked she might still be doomed to live this timeline out to its inevitable conclusion.  Eventually Tyler, who had taken command after Matt left, declared it was time to go.  Wearily she packed up the radio, slung her pack over her shoulder, and trudged along with the other two, back to their shelter.   

Matt didn't return, but there could be a thousand different reasons for that.

Few of them could be good.

## Another time, another place...

Anomalies were few and far between in the world that Emily had taken them to.

It took a while for them to understand why.

At first they were puzzled by the unfamiliar flora and fauna, the way that nothing seemed to be the same as anything they'd ever encountered from fossils or occasional accidental trips to the past.  And the stars were wrong.  They were always wrong through an anomaly, but it seemed to Connor that there were ones missing.  There shouldn't be stars missing, even if it were just a few.

It was one of the ARC staff who worked it out.  Not one of the scientists but a girl from Accounts who had been helping dig out irrigation channels in the fields.  She'd found a simple thing - a pound coin, impossibly ancient, buried deep in the ground. 

Connor wondered if talking apes would come riding in to capture them.

It explained why they'd had to climb up to the anomaly, and then emerged on level ground.  Centuries of dirt had built up, raising the level.  It didn't explain where the predators had gone, or the giant bugs, or any of the other horrors that they'd seen come through from the future.  Abby wondered if they had died out without a food source, and gradually the earth had healed itself.

It gave them a second chance, the realisation that they didn't need to worry about changing anything because they were in the future and it was completely unwritten.  It gave them hope.

It also made Connor feel even worse that they'd left some of the group behind.  And so he worked on the anomaly detection device, adjusting it as best he could with the limited tools he'd carried through with him.  He did it quietly, not sure that anyone would approve of him risking the new land they'd been lucky enough to fall into.  But he couldn't leave them behind.  He couldn't.

All he needed to do was open just one anomaly to the right time, just once.  He could do it.  He wouldn't rest until he had.

*

There was a light coming down the main line.  A narrow access tunnel from the old Down Street station let them see anything that came down there.

Tyler was ready, gun drawn, aimed and ready to fire.  It wouldn't be a predator, not with a torch, but it could be someone after their supplies.  Food was getting very scarce.  He'd already had to kill one intruder who'd tried to break in.

Just one man, looking into every nook and cranny.  Definitely after food.  Tyler pushed Jess further back behind him, stepping back himself further into the shadows.

The man stopped at the tunnel, shining the torch inside, then trying to open the gate to take a closer look.  It rattled, locked, and they saw him raise his shotgun and blast the lock away.

Johnson pulled Jess back, and she couldn't see what clearly happened next. 

"That's far enough!"

Tyler was a quiet man but his voice was authoritative enough when it needed to be.  The gun he held was pretty imposing as well.

The other man, the intruder, didn't attack but apparently was quick to move back out of range because she heard the gate clang, and then he called out to them:

"I don't want your supplies.  I'm looking for some friends of mine."

The voice was familiar, it sounded so much like Becker that it hurt.  Jess glanced up at Johnson, and could see from his frown that he thought so too. 

"Show yourself!" Tyler demanded.  Evidently the recognition was there for all of them.

The man laughed: "So that you can get a better aim?  No thanks, I've been shot at enough.  I just want to know if you've come across any other groups down here.  It's quite a large group.  An Irish man, a pregnant woman, soldiers..."

Jess pushed forward again, ignoring the curse from Johnson and only stopping when Tyler grabbed her arm.

"It sounds like..."

"I know," Tyler hissed at her.  "But it can't be."

 "Becker?"

He wasn't stupid, he didn't rush at them.  Tyler, after all, had a gun.  But he shone the torch into his own face, then quickly at them, then back again.

It was difficult, under all the grime, to see if it was really him.  There was a scar, many scars, and she'd never, ever seen him with a beard or with his hair looking anything like the straggly mess it had become.  But there was that distinctive build and height, and just the way he carried himself and anyway she'd know him anywhere.

"I thought you were dead!"

"Apparently not."  He looked as if he was going to make a further comment, but she just flung herself at him, too relieved to do anything else.  She was vaguely aware of the other two following her, clapping him on the back.  It was the only hopeful thing that had happened to the three of them for a long time.   She clung tighter.

*

The discovery had been so sudden, so unexpected.  Becker had been briefly horrified that there were only three of them left, until Tyler told him that most of the others had escaped to the past.

"It'll be okay now," Jess whispered to him.

He looked around, over the top of her head at the tired, familiar faces of his two remaining men.  Hope was something they'd forgotten.  It was the end of the world.  It wasn't ever going to be okay.  Even if they all escaped through an anomaly, found somewhere safe to live out their days, they'd know that one day it would all come down to this.

"Jess, it's not..."

He felt her grip tighten.  "I know," she whispered, although he hadn't voiced his pessimism.  "I know.  But just let me think it, just for a minute."

So he did.

*

A million years away, an anomaly opened at Connor's command.

That was the impossible thing.  Finding his friends and bringing them home would be easier.

***

 

 

  
 


End file.
